In one known deflector for a sliding roof of a vehicle (German Patent No. 11,89,393), the deflector air guide is housed, in the at-rest or stowed position, upright or on-edge in a forward edge gap between the sliding lid and a front transverse frame component of the sliding roof frame. The deflector has an elastic strip formed with an upwardly tapering profile, by which a bending deformation of the elastic strip dependent upon the vehicle and wind flow speed is intended to be achieved.
When the deflector's air guide is raised above the roof surface in its working and erect position, a forwardly orientated flange projection of a rigid bar constructed as U-section, which receives the lower end of the elastic strip for the purpose of fixing it, engages beneath the head of a sealing strip, fixed as an edge gap seal to a downwardly bent roof opening rim. In this way the upward movement of the air guide is limited and at the same time entry of air before and beneath the air guide is prevented. This known arrangement of an upstanding wind deflector has proved satisfactory in automobiles with a roof surface extending virtually horizontally in the direction of travel and relatively small roof openings of the sliding roof.
Modern automobile bodies increasingly have a wedge-shaped longitudinal contour, in which the roof surface, starting from the upper edge of the front pane, rises towards the upper edge of the rear window pane. If a body of this type is equipped with a sliding roof, the front transverse edge of the roof opening is situated at a lower level than the rear transverse edge of the roof opening. This difference in level increases further by the use of sliding roofs of increasingly large area, in the roof openings of which the distance between the front and rear edges of the roof opening is considerably larger. Therefore, when the sliding lid is pushed back, the raised wind deflector must be capable of guiding the air stream above the higher, rear roof opening edge. For this purpose, however, the upper edge of the air guide must project higher above the front roof opening rim, which requires that the cross-section of the air guide be lengthened.
Lately the overall height of the sliding roof units has, however, been continually decreased to give greater headroom for the occupants of an automobile, so that the distance between the bottom of the water gully of the front transverse frame profile and an edge gap sealing profile pushed onto the edge of the sliding lid, for example glass lid, is no longer sufficient for accommodating an air guide standing on edge. Added to this is the fact that the useful distance between the bottom of water gutter and edge gap sealing profile in a sliding-lifting roof is still further reduced by the penetration of the front edge of the lid into the front roof opening region when the rear edge of the lid is raised.